


Bleeding Heart

by sal_si_puedes



Series: Lamen Week 2020 [4]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Blood, Blood and Injury, Heavy Angst, Hospitals, M/M, Semi-graphic description of gunshot wounds, Soulmates, Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Thoughts, silver lining (if you squint), trust your author - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:35:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24894001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sal_si_puedes/pseuds/sal_si_puedes
Summary: Soul Bonds are one-sided – there’s usually mutual affection, sometimes even infatuation or love, but only one party feels the crippling need to be with the other at all costs. If separated at length from their soulmate, the compromised party is gradually crushed by longing, panic, and hopelessness, and, eventually, they die from the wounds the loss inflicts upon their heart.The rivaling families of King and deVere have been at the center of the Chicago mob scene for decades and became recently involved in one of the bloodiest mob wars in history. The second sons of both family heads, Damen and Laurent respectively, have been secret lovers for over a year when, one fateful night, the conflict between the King family and the deVere family escalates, and Laurent is struck down by a bullet fired by a member of the King family. After trying to keep Laurent from bleeding out and rushing to the hospital with him in an ambulance, Damen is sitting in the waiting room with Laurent’s blood on his hands. He’s about to make a confession to his best friend, betraying the deepest secret of his heart.Written for#lamen week 2020on tumblr - prompt Day 4: Wounds.
Relationships: Damen & Nikandros (Captive Prince), Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince)
Series: Lamen Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1797085
Comments: 12
Kudos: 57
Collections: Lamen Week 2020





	Bleeding Heart

**Author's Note:**

> No, this is not the prompt fill for Day 5 - Soulmate!AU, even though this is a soulmate!AU. There will be another one to fill that prompt tomorrow, a completely different one. :)
> 
> Thank you so much, dearest Carrie, fot the beta - and for helping me hide that gun! <3

“Hey,” Nikandros says, quickly approaching and coming to an abrupt halt right in front of Damen, who has been sitting in that waiting room, in that plastic chair for what seems like hours, his face buried in his bloody hands. “How are you holding up?”

Damen shakes his head and runs his fingers through his messy hair before he covers his face again. 

“What happened? I came here as soon as I heard. They said you were in the ambulance with—”

Nikandros must have talked to the nurses, then.

“He’s lost too much blood,” Damen murmurs into his hands, shaking his head again. When he finally looks up, he can see shock and horror in Nikandros’s eyes. He lets his gaze drop to his palms. They are dark with blood and they’re a bit sticky. Most of the blood has dried already, but somet is still a little wet to the touch.

“He…” Damen squeezes his eyes shut tightly against the images that keep flooding his mind: Laurent on the ground, even paler than usual, a dark stain spreading on his chest, his eyes flickering, his lips turning blue, and Damen’s hands pressing down on the wound near his heart, his voice raw and hoarse as he yells for someone to call 911. Laurent’s name, whispered over and over. The taste of metal and salt. Laurent telling him that he is tired and cold, his chest heaving and his hair curling with stale sweat.

“DeVere,” Nikandros murmurs, and there it is, that permanent hint of objection, of contempt, that never truly leaves Nikandros’s words when he speaks of Laurent. Even though Damen has told him about Laurent’s and his relationship over half a year ago, even though Laurent has proven himself worthy of Damen’s trust and love many times over. Nikandros is the only one who knows about them, apart from Damen himself and from Laurent, of course. And from Auguste, Laurent’s older brother. Auguste had known as well. Now, there were only the three of them left.

Damen nods.

“Laurent,” he says, and his voice trembles and his eyes sting. He can feel how his features contort, and he forces himself to take a deep breath, and another, and another. He bites the insides of his cheeks so hard he tastes blood. Again.

“What happened?” Nikandros asks a second time, slowly sitting down in the chair next to Damen. He’s holding a tray with two Styrofoam cups in his hands, coffee probably, and he has a folded newspaper tucked under his arm and Damen watches how Nikandros sets both down on the empty chair to his left. 

“He—” Damen clears his throat and swallows. “His heart—He—There was a shooting, and he—The paramedic in the ambulance said—”

He can’t do it, he can’t say that Laurent was shot, that a bullet from Makedon's gun had buried itself inside of Laurent’s chest and had taken him down. That he had ripped Laurent’s shirt open and had stared at the wound for far too long before covering it with his palms and pressing down to staunch the bleeding. So, he repeats the only thing he is able to say.

“He’s lost too much blood.”

Nikandros leans back and runs his palms over his thighs, taking a deep breath. Then he nods.

“He might not make it.”

“No.” Damen shakes his head and bites his lips. His fingernails dig into his palms hard, and he fights the nausea surging inside of him. “No.”

“Damen,” Nikandros tries again, but Damen cuts him short.

“Don’t. Don’t say that.”

“But—”

“I’m going to kill him,” Damen hisses, balling his hands into even tighter fists. 

“Who?”

“Makedon.”

Nikandros nods. He knows Damen means it. He knows Damen will if Laurent really doesn’t make it.

“And the doctor if he lets him die.”

Nikandros nods again. He gently places a hand on Damen’s arm and takes a deep breath.

“There’s nothing you can do,” he says. “You should go home and get some—”

“If he dies,” Damen says, and a detached part of his mind takes bewildered notice at how much it hurts to say those words and how numb he feels at the same time, “if he dies, I’m—I can’t go on if he doesn’t make it.”

“Not like this, you mean,” Nikandros says after a short pause and nods. “I understand.”

“You don’t understand,” Damen whispers, running his right palm over his face. The pain is almost filling him to the brim now, and Damen can’t tell for sure if it will overflow or not. “I don’t mean like this. I mean, I just _can’t_. I’d—He—I won’t survive.”

“ _No,_ ” Nikandros cuts in, his eyes wide and his voice filled with shock and horror once more. “Please tell me it’s not what I think it i—”

“It is.”

“No. Say it isn’t true. Christ, Damen. It _can’t_ be. You—”

“It _is_. _He_ is.”

Damen is dead tired all of a sudden, his body heavy as lead, and all he wants to do is lie down, close his eyes and just be done with it all.

“What did he—?”

“He doesn’t know,” Damen murmurs and bites his lips again. They taste of blood and salt. “He doesn’t know,” he repeats after a short pause. He leans forward and lets his head hang between his shoulders, burying his bloodied fingers in his hair and closing them into tight fists. “I never told him. I thought he didn’t need…” Damen lets his words trail away and fade out. He doesn’t know what he had thought. He doesn’t know very much anymore at all.

“I—” Nikandros shifts, and Damen can hear him swallow thickly. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Yeah,” Damen chuckles mirthlessly, his voice dry and hoarse. “Yeah, I know. It’s ironic, really, if you think about it.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

Damen slowly raises his head and looks Nikandros straight in the eyes.

“Yes. Shoot me when it gets too bad.”

From the expression on Nikandros’s face Damen can tell that Nikandros knows that he means every word he has just said.

Slowly, Nikandros shakes his head. “No. I couldn’t—”

“I’ll do it myself, then,” Damen says, and he means that, too. And he knows that Nikandros knows that as well.

“I killed his brother,” Damen adds before Nikandros can reply anything. He might as well say it all. “I shot Auguste tonight, right before Makedon sh—” Damen coughs and swallows around the lump in his throat. “He—Auguste was aiming at father, and he would have killed him if I hadn’t—” Something catches in his throat again, and this time it makes him gag, but he manages to swallow and cough around it after a while. When he can speak again, his words are raw with pain. “He’s never going to forgive me,” he says. “If he makes it, if he wakes up again, he’s never going to forgive me for that.”

Nikandros shifts in his chair again, and he reaches out to put his arm around Damen’s shoulder, but Damen makes him stop with one swift gesture of his hand. 

“No,” Damen says, and Nikandros freezes. “Don’t.” He raises his head a little and lets his eyes briefly scan the room. And then he says one more thing. “Give me your gun.”

“Damen,” Nikandros tries to say, but the tone in his words shows that he already knows that this is going to be a fruitless attempt. “No, I—”

“I left mine in the street,” Damen says, turning to his left and searching for Nikandros’s eyes again. If someone had told him before tonight that he’d drop his gun after killing a man and simply leave it lying there in the street, he’d have thought it absolutely impossible. “Someone picked it up, after. I think it was one of us. Give me your gun.”

“Not here,” Nikandros whispers, and Damen narrows his eyes. “There’s cops and—”

“Occupied,” Damen says, and Nikandros glances to the reception desk where Damen knows a uniformed cop is in deep conversation with one of the nurses. “Use the paper.”

As if in slow motion, Nikandros grabs the paper and places it in his lap, the open side facing his body. Then he reaches into his jacket and pulls his gun from its holster. He shoves it between the pages of the paper and hands the paper to Damen who opens it a little, just a little, and gives the gun between the folds a long look before he nods. Then he surreptitiously picks it up and lets it slip it into the inside pocket of his jacket. 

“What are you going to do with it?” Nikandros asks, and Damen shakes his head.

“I don’t know,” he says, running his palm over his eyes once more. He’s so tired, and he wishes he could sleep. “I just want to have it.”

Nikandros nods. They sit together in silence for a while, a long while, probably, Damen’s thoughts and the images in his mind finally slowing down and thinning out until there is only one image left, and one thought. 

Blood pulsing from an open wound. Laurent.

And then, like a heartbeat, only the thought remains.

Laurent.

Laurent.

Laurent.

A noise to his right makes Damen’s head snap up, and he slowly opens his eyes. Everything is blurred, but after a moment, he can make out the shape of a man in blue hospital scrubs. There are dark stains all over the blue shirt, and the man looks tired. The expression on his face is serious, guarded. Next to Damen, Nikandros slowly rises to his feet.

“You were in the ambulance with him,” the man says, trying to catch Damen’s gaze. “Are you related?”

Damen swallows. His chest hurts and his eyes are burning. He looks down at his hands and watches them tremble. “I—He—” He finds that he can’t speak, so he doesn’t try again. Next to him, Nikandros takes a small step forward, and Damen wonders why.

“He’s—” Nikandros hesitates for a second, but then he takes another step towards the man in blue and speaks again. “He’s his soulmate.”

The man nods.

“I’m Dr. Paschal. I did the surgery. Mr. deVere’s condition is still critical, but he’s stable for now. He’s being transferred to the ICU. We can’t make any predictions just yet, but we expect him to wake up in a couple of hours.”

Damen looks up again. He gasps for air; he must have been holding his breath because his head is swimming with dizziness.

“He will probably want to see you when he wakes up,” Dr. Paschal says, nodding again. “You should go home until—”

“I’ll stay,” Damen whispers, and Dr. Paschal nods once more.

Damen can feel the weight of the gun inside of his pocket, a touch of metal to his chest through the thin fabric of his shirt. He bites his lips. He knows that Laurent has seen him shoot Auguste. He knows that Damen killing his brother is the last thing Laurent has seen before Makedon’s bullet took him down.

“Damen,” Nikandros says and sits down next to him again. “You should—”

“No,” Damen shakes his head. Maybe he can explain to Laurent later, if Laurent lets him. If he wakes up. “No. I’ll stay.”

And if Laurent doesn’t let him, there’s still the gun in his pocket, and maybe he can make Nikandros use it after all, if Laurent cuts him loose, before things get too bad. 

But from the bleeding wound in his heart, a faint blossom of hope has begun to unfurl in Damen’s chest. He takes a deep breath and nods.

“I’ll stay.”

~fin~

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [sal-si-puedes](https://sal-si-puedes.tumblr.com/) on tumblr - come and say "Hi!"!


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